Success Stories

They wait for hours, sometimes days. For some of them waiting has become a way of life or, worse, the substance of life. Waiting for assistance, for a job, for a drink, for a break, for the next hit, for some spare change, for a housing voucher…. Waiting for something to change in a landscape that always seems the same.

When you hear the word homeless who do you picture? Perhaps, like many of us, you see the guy on the street with a cardboard sign, or the squeegee man who inevitably leaves your windshield dirtier then when he started….

While these people make up a percentage of our clients the face of homelessness is broader than that. Our clients are youths age 17-24 - people who have aged out of the foster care system and have few skills and less hope. They are women and their children running from abusive relationships. They are people who let drugs take over their lives. And sometimes it's just someone who had a spate of bad luck and needs a little hand to get back up.

JHP serves all of these people and we ask each of them the same question — what have you done today to get a job?

Here are three of our recent success stories:

Monica and her three sons were homeless and running from an abusive relationship when they came to Jobs for Homeless People. Now she is employed by Verizon and has moved out of the shelter and into an apartment in Rockville.

Devon saw his life ending in prison or worse before he was 30. At 19 he had been in trouble with the law more than a dozen times and his family had disowned him for robbing his Grandmother's house. Now he is going to Morehouse College on a full scholarship.

Greg, a Vietnam Vet who'd been on and off the street for close to 20 years, found that he had a flair for databases in Jobs for Homeless People's computer class. He now runs his own business and just bought a house last fall.

ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICE:
Headquarters- 1526 Pennsylvania Ave. SE, Washington, D.C. 20003
(202) 544-9128· Fax (202) 544-6600